Ep 38: Laura Graves: What Keeps a Horse Sound in Late Teens

Mount St John Freestyle was 17 at Aachen. Verdades was 17 in his last season. So when Linda writes in about her rising 15 year old FEI mare, who has a joint supplement and not much else, the real question is what the next five years could look like.

Laura Graves joins Nat Foxon to answer it, and it turns into a full map of how she keeps horses in work: the crisis she is always trying to head off, why she wants her vet to see the horse on a bad day rather than a good one, where steroids still earn their place alongside IRAP, A2M and stem cells, the farrier as the foundation the whole thing sits on, and the one line item she would cut first if money got tight.

Plus the training side, because Laura's view is that dressage done properly should be adding years to a horse's career rather than taking them off.

• 00:00 Linda's question: what do you actually do for the older equine athlete?
• 01:24 Freestyle at 17 in Aachen, and whether that is an outlier or available to the rest of us
• 02:11 "What we do with our sport, when it's done well, should prolong a horse's fitness and soundness"
• 02:52 Verdades: born 2002, retired 2020, and the lunge line incident that really ended it
• 04:05 Healthy stock, conformation, and the miles you put on a young horse
• 05:13 Laura's number one management goal: avoid a crisis
• 06:29 Why joint injections feel aggressive, and the car tyre analogy that reframes them
• 06:51 Soft tissue is what you are really trying to avoid
• 08:07 Building the team: your vet early, and a second set of eyes
• 09:07 The hardest hire on the whole team is the farrier
• 09:49 The vet check Laura wants, on the horse's worst day
• 10:47 Least aggressive first, and why changing too much too soon backfires on a 12 year old
• 11:52 Steroids: glorious, fast, and genuinely risky
• 12:19 IRAP, Arthrimed, A2M, stem cells and what the science can do now
• 13:45 Supplements: what Laura feeds, and how much weight she puts on it
• 15:05 Balance and symmetry as longevity tools, not just marks
• 16:46 What Laura most wants Linda to hear

• The goal is not treating lameness, it is never getting there. Laura's whole system is built around avoiding the crisis.
• A horse that always favours one leg wears unevenly, the same way a car out of alignment chews its tyres. Uneven loading is what turns into a strained tendon.
• Work the horse hard before the vet comes. Laura does not want the vet meeting the horse on its best day.
• The farrier is the hardest hire and the most load-bearing one. Most soundness starts in the feet.
• Regenerative options cost more and work slower than steroids, and carry far less risk.
• Balance and symmetry matter for longevity whether you are chasing 70 percent or hacking for fun.

Mentioned: Mount St John Freestyle, Verdades, Aachen, Platinum Performance, Adequan, Legend, IRAP, Arthrimed, A2M, stem cell therapy